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DIY: Do It Yourself Post here to share or improve your wrench turning skills! All BMW E46 DIY tips, tales, and projects discussed inside. Learn to work on your car and know the right BMW parts you will need!

hi guys, i was after this mod for a long time, i know only a few of you have done it, but nobody has post a DIY, so my slushbox got cracked and i took the oportunity to do the smg dome retrofit. the look its not 10/10 but it looks better than before, and im sure that with other knob and boot it will look better.

materials:
dremel
sandpaper
tape
time
patience

1. buy the smg dome with the ring, and get rid of the sMg badge, this will leave some tiny holes. with bondo or other kind of filler, fill them and with a low grit sandpaper (+-1500) work it and the whole dome for painting it.

2.this is where cutting begins. The fear about doing this mod has allways been the parking possition, and its true, without cutting some stuff, you cant reach the parking possition, so we have to check where the stick meets with the ring and cut an inch(1'') of it, the same amount will be cutted from the dome.
-put some tape to protect the ring from any possible damage with the dremell

3.the same has to be done in the dome, exactly how is here, and the work the shape with a sandpaper

3. this is how it looks in the P possition, we have to leave some space for the boot.

4.this is the finished product! i painted it flat black, and leave the sensitivity control, for a future mod, the ipod dock ( i know the knob looks like sh1t, will replace it) and tomorow a new custom boot will be created by mom.

Does not look that bad, not something I would do but looks OK. I actually had a alcantara manual shift boot for a time on my step, got rid of it. Nice write up though. I know there were some people asking for a DIY like this.

So this mod is mainly cosmetic? in terms of just modding out the shift gaiter from steptronic style to SMG style?

yes my friend!!! obviously, i just replaced the ugly steptronic slushbox with a smg plastic cover. but in a near future................................the functional smg steering wheel to auto retrofit will be here too.

yes my friend!!! obviously, i just replaced the ugly steptronic slushbox with a smg plastic cover. but in a near future................................the functional smg steering wheel to auto retrofit will be here too.

It was successfully done on a 2006 E90 which shares the identical steptronic gear box in terms of set up and mapping as the E46. So there is no doubt that following the E90 DIY you can have a fully functional M6 SMG knob sans the actual SMG transmission on the E46 for purely cosmetic reasons. Your DIY pretty much is half of this DIY. So much congrads to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by delmarco

The mod would be cosmetic at best...and taking cue from the M5 SMG to E90-auto DIY...

...all the mod would entail is splicing the led wires to match up to the shifter's leds. The rest of the DIY is fitting the stalk into place on the older car.

Actually the SMG knob seems like it would be easier and sensible to mod onto our cars...

I even looked at trying the retrofit with the DCT knob from the X5 following the E90 retrofit DIY. But the DIY wiring is horrendous so I scrapped that project and returned to trying the simpler M6 SMG knob retrofit. As soon as I pick one up for under $450 (which is what they are going for) I will attempt this as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by delmarco

updates????
The wiring for this DIY is horrendous. Any help from anyone that wired an illuminating shift knob before will help;

The new selector comes with extra pin wirings (it has a 12 pin head plug as to the normal 6 pin head) that seem to go nowhere in our cars.

here are pics of the knob close up;

This was done successfully on a Z4 so I have no idea what our E46 community is waiting for when this is a killer DIY that is fairly easy and cheap with great effects. Thanks for re-sparking my interest in this DIY.

thanks for all the kind words man, and yes, i was looking at that same knob before i did this, but the price is too much for just a knob, rigth now im in negociations with a couple of members selling smg knobs.

ok guys, finally i found a good offer in a smg knob, those stupid PLASTIC things are $70+, in my way i got good offers in a few smg domes, i will cuztomize them, and sell them here, so if anyone interested pm me, here are the new pics: